Trial Courts & Appellate Courts Can Exercise Full Discretion for Awarding Concurrent Sentencing Under Section 31 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973: Apex Court

CONCURRENT PUNISHMENT: When the Accused serves all the sentences in respect of two or more offences at the same time.​

CONSECUTIVE PUNISHMENT: When the Accused has to finish serving the sentence for one offence before it starts to serve the sentence for any other offence.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in its latest decision in the matter of Malkeet Singh Gill v/s The State of Chhattisgarh, affirmed and upheld the following settled principles of criminal jurisprudence:​

• The High Court in a criminal revision against a conviction sentenced by the lower court(s) is not supposed to exercise the jurisdiction same as that of the Appellate Court, since the scope of interference in revision is extremely narrow. The High Court while exercising its revisional jurisdiction cannot sit as a regular Court of appeal and can only deal with the impugned point of law before it.​

• Further, while upholding the decision of the High Court which affirmed the conviction sentence of the Trial and the Appellate Court against the Appellant, however, directing the same to be run concurrently instead of consecutively, the Apex Court held that Section 31 of Cr.P.C. provides for full discretion to the lower courts for passing orders for concurrent punishment in case of conviction for two or more offences. ​